Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Rachael M. Marshal, Ottaviano Ruesch, Christian Woehler, Kay Wohlfarth, Sergey Velichko
Summary: The study and investigation of meter and sub-meter scale geological features, especially boulders and boulder fields, on the surface of airless bodies can provide insight into the evolution of the regolith and the contribution of various processes to its formation. Prior studies have examined the photometric properties of the lunar regolith surrounding young craters using image ratios. We extend this methodology to extracting surface properties, in particular the roughness characteristics, exclusive to boulder fields and the boulders that constitute them around impact craters.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Qiu-Li Li, Qin Zhou, Yu Liu, Zhiyong Xiao, Yangting Lin, Jin-Hua Li, Hong-Xia Ma, Guo-Qiang Tang, Shun Guo, Xu Tang, Jiang-Yan Yuan, Jiao Li, Fu-Yuan Wu, Ziyuan Ouyang, Chunlai Li, Xian-Hua Li
Summary: The study reports the youngest crystallization age of lunar basalts obtained through radiometric dating, extending the duration of lunar volcanic activity and providing a crucial calibration point for crater-counting chronology in the inner Solar System, shedding light on the volcanic and thermal history of the Moon.
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Chunyu Ding, Qingquan Li, Jiangwan Xu, Zhonghan Lei, Jiawei Li, Yan Su, Shaopeng Huang
Summary: The Moon-based ground penetrating radar carried by the Yutu rover is used to explore the shallow subsurface structure of the Moon and its internal resources. The results show that the helium-3 reservoir along the Yutu rover's route is estimated to be 37-51 g with a concentration of 0.083-0.114 g/m^2, which is at least five times higher than the global average. The article also discusses the possibility of using lunar helium-3 as fuel for nuclear fusion and suggests the Chang'E-3 landing area as a potential site for future helium-3 exploitation.
IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING
(2023)
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Bojun Jia, Wenzhe Fa, Minggang Xie, Yushan Tai, Xiaofeng Liu
Summary: In December 2020, China's Chang'E-5 spacecraft collected 1.731 kg samples from Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon's nearside, providing valuable information for understanding the geological context and properties of the returned regolith samples. Through a comprehensive analysis of regolith properties in the landing region, it was found that the majority of surface regolith are local materials and the thickness of regolith varies from about 1.5 to 8 meters.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-PLANETS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Honglei Lin, Shuai Li, Rui Xu, Yang Liu, Xing Wu, Wei Yang, Yong Wei, Yangting Lin, Zhiping He, Hejiu Hui, Huaiyu He, Sen Hu, Chi Zhang, Chunlai Li, Gang Lv, Liyin Yuan, Yongliao Zou, Chi Wang
Summary: Analysis of reflectance spectra from the Chang'E-5 lander reveals that lunar regolith samples from the Northern Oceanus Procellarum contain up to 120 ppm of water, mostly attributed to solar wind implantation. A light-colored rock named CE5-Rock near the lander exhibits stronger absorption and potentially contains around 180 ppm of water, suggesting an additional water source from the lunar interior. The low water content of the regolith may indicate degassing of the mantle reservoir beneath the Chang'E-5 landing site.
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Yunzhao Wu, Ekkehard Kuhrt, Matthias Grott, Qi Jin, Tianyi Xu, Jorn Helbert, Maximilian Hamm, Nannan Qin, Jinsong Ma, Jean-Baptiste Vincent, Paul Hayne
Summary: Temperature measurements on the lunar surface at centimeter scales in short-wavelength infrared were observed in situ by the Chang'E-4 rover, providing additional information to existing large-scale data. Surface roughness at subresolution scales was found to affect the observed thermal radiances and derived temperatures, highlighting the importance of considering this factor when determining the thermal properties of lunar regolith.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Xiaochao Che, Alexander Nemchin, Dunyi Liu, Tao Long, Chen Wang, Marc D. Norman, Katherine H. Joy, Romain Tartese, James Head, Bradley Jolliff, Joshua F. Snape, Clive R. Neal, Martin J. Whitehouse, Carolyn Crow, Gretchen Benedix, Fred Jourdan, Zhiqing Yang, Chun Yang, Jianhui Liu, Shiwen Xie, Zemin Bao, Runlong Fan, Dapeng Li, Zengsheng Li, Stuart G. Webb
Summary: By analyzing the youngest basalt lavas on the Moon, scientists have determined their age to be 1963 million years. This finding provides important constraints on the formation history and thermal evolution of the Moon. Additionally, there is no evidence for high concentrations of heat-producing elements in the deep mantle of the Moon, suggesting the need for alternative mechanisms to explain the continuous formation of lunar magmatism.
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Ze Yang, Zhizhong Kang, Zhen Cao, Juntao Yang, Man Peng, Bin Liu
Summary: A coarse-to-fine method for crater matching on lunar images with different terrains and solar altitude angles was proposed, resulting in improved matching results.
IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Dijun Guo, Wenzhe Fa, Bo Wu, Yuan Li, Yang Liu
Summary: This study presents the millimeter-to decimeter-scale surface slope and roughness of the Moon at China's Chang'e-4 landing regions for the first time. The bidirectional slope and RMS height show scale-dependent behaviors, with bidirectional slope decreasing from micrometer to kilometer scales. Lunar surface roughness is mainly controlled by small impact craters, rocks, and regolith properties at millimeter-scale.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Zhiguo Meng, Xuegang Dong, Jietao Lei, Jinsong Ping, Zhanchuan Cai, Xiaoping Zhang, Shaopeng Huang, Yuanzhi Zhang
Summary: In this study, a novel approach is presented to construct a local-time brightness temperature model using MRM data. The model generates continuous and self-consistent TB maps, offering superior representations of TB over time for various lunar surfaces. Preliminary evaluations suggest the important application of MRM data in studying the geological features of the Moon.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Lixin Gu, Yongjin Chen, Yuchen Xu, Xu Tang, Yangting Lin, Takaaki Noguchi, Jinhua Li
Summary: This study reports the characteristics of space weathering on lunar soils collected by Chang'e-5, showing that micrometeorite impacts and solar wind irradiation have significantly modified the composition and microstructure of the lunar soil materials. The exposed mineral phases on the surface of a basalt clast have a vapor deposit layer, and the textures of the solar wind irradiation-damaged zone vary depending on the host mineral species. The findings contribute to the understanding of the reflectance spectra of the Moon.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Chunyu Ding, Jing Li, Rong Hu
Summary: The Moon-based ground-penetrating radar (GPR) onboard the Chang'E-4 (CE-4) Yutu-2 rover has deployed on the Moon's far side, providing an unprecedented opportunity to study the shallow surface geological process and the history of the volcanic eruption of the Moon. The high-frequency radar observed a buried lens structure similar to 27 m below the lunar surface, interpreted as paleoregolith by previous studies. Our quantitative analysis of the dielectric properties reveals that the buried lens structure is likely a basalt flow representing the latest volcanic eruption on the Moon, possibly from the Eratosthenian-aged volcano that occurred approximately 2.5-2.2 billion years ago.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Analytical
Yunfan Lu, Yifan Hu, Jun Xiao, Lupeng Liu, Long Zhang, Ying Wang
Summary: The Chang'e lunar exploration project in China has obtained digital orthophoto image (DOM) and digital elevation model (DEM) data covering the entire Moon, which are crucial for lunar research. Researchers proposed a four-step framework to build a three-dimensional (3D) model of the Moon with crater information using deep learning detection methods and auxiliary annotation software based on Chang'e data in the Chang'e reference frame.
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Xiaojia Zeng, Xiongyao Li, Jianzhong Liu
Summary: The 2-Gyr-old Chang'e-5 samples are the youngest lunar basaltic regolith returned to Earth and can provide new information about lithological diversity and regolith gardening processes on the Moon. Analysis of over 3,000 Chang'e-5 regolith particles revealed 7 exotic igneous clasts, including a pyroclastic glass bead that suggests previously unrecognized volcanic eruptions on the Moon. The lower than expected amount of exotic material in the samples indicates a need to revise current impact ejecta models for young lunar geological units.
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Shoujie Liu, Qin Zhou, Qiuli Li, Sen Hu, Wei Yang
Summary: The Chang'e-5 mission returned lunar samples that share similar basic physical properties with previous Apollo and Luna samples, but with finer grain size and better sorting. Through various analyses, researchers also discovered new evidence that lunar volcanic activity can persist for a long time, opening up a new direction for future lunar research.
SCIENCE CHINA-EARTH SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Bo Wu, Yuan Li, Wai Chung Liu, Yiran Wang, Fei Li, Yang Zhao, He Zhang
Summary: This study utilized Pancam images to conduct centimeter-resolution topographic modeling and fine-scale analysis of craters and rocks at the Chang'E-4 landing site. Results revealed a terrain slope of 4 degrees at the landing site, an average depth-to-diameter ratio of 0.061 for small craters, a rock abundance of 0.21%, and a tendency for more rocks to be located inside craters with greater depth-to-diameter ratios.
EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCE LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Yuan Li, Bo Wu
Summary: This paper presents a method for automatic 3D building reconstruction from photogrammetric point clouds in urban areas, which embeds multiple relations into a procedural modeling process. The proposed method outperformed existing methods in terms of robustness, regularity, and topological correctness. The CityGML building models generated by this method showed high consistency with manually digitized ground truth, indicating their potential usefulness in smart city applications.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Zeyu Chen, Bo Wu, Wai Chung Liu
Summary: This paper presents a CNN-based algorithm for generating DEMs from single images of Mars, demonstrating promising performance in reconstructing topographic details and achieving geometric accuracies. The method shows potential for 3D surface reconstruction in planetary applications.
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Dijun Guo, Wenzhe Fa, Bo Wu, Yuan Li, Yang Liu
Summary: This study presents the millimeter-to decimeter-scale surface slope and roughness of the Moon at China's Chang'e-4 landing regions for the first time. The bidirectional slope and RMS height show scale-dependent behaviors, with bidirectional slope decreasing from micrometer to kilometer scales. Lunar surface roughness is mainly controlled by small impact craters, rocks, and regolith properties at millimeter-scale.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Chunyu Ding, Zhiyong Xiao, Bo Wu, Zhaojin Li, Yan Su, Bin Zhou, Kaijun Liu, Jun Cui
Summary: The top centimeters of mature lunar regolith are believed to be dominated by fine particles with few rocky fragments, but dense fragments and rocks have been found within the top layers. These dense materials are hypothesized to be impact breccias formed by host craters, revealing a highly heterogeneous structure in shallow depths of the lunar regolith. Sand-blasting impacts are also identified as a new mechanism for pore destruction in mature lunar regolith.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-PLANETS
(2021)
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Yiran Wang, Bo Wu, Haiou Xue, Xiaoming Li, Jun Ma
Summary: This study introduces a machine-learning approach for automatic crater detection and a method for extracting 3D morphometric information of craters. These approaches were applied to create a global crater dataset containing approximately 1.32 million craters with diameters of 1 km or larger, which were verified against previously published catalogs. This comprehensive crater catalog provides valuable data for various lunar scientific studies.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-PLANETS
(2021)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Bo Wu, Jie Dong, Yiran Wang, Zhaojin Li, Zeyu Chen, Wai Chung Liu, Jiaming Zhu, Long Chen, Yuan Li, Wei Rao
Summary: This paper presents a comprehensive study on the candidate landing region for Tianwen-1, China's first mission to Mars, including analysis of topography, geomorphology, and geological units, providing important references for subsequent mission planning and scientific research.
EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Zhaojin Li, Bo Wu, Wai Chung Liu, Zeyu Chen
Summary: This article proposes an innovative approach to integrate photogrammetry and photoclinometry for pixelwise 3-D mapping of the Martian surface using multiple HRSC images, improving the quality and resolution of terrain data. Through qualitative and quantitative validations, the results show that the generated DEMs have good geometric consistency with reference data, but offer subtle topographic details that align with the original images.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Yazhou Yang, Shuai Li, Meng-Hua Zhu, Yang Liu, Bo Wu, Jun Du, Wenzhe Fa, Rui Xu, Zhiping He, Chi Wang, Bin Xue, Jianfeng Yang, Yongliao Zou
Summary: The study reports the discovery of carbonaceous chondrite fragments on the lunar surface by the Yutu-2 rover of Chang'e-4, which could potentially be a water source for the Moon. This is the first direct observation of such remnants through remote sensing exploration.
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Bo Wu, Jie Dong, Yiran Wang, Wei Rao, Zezhou Sun, Zhaojin Li, Zhiyun Tan, Zeyu Chen, Chuang Wang, Wai Chung Liu, Long Chen, Jiaming Zhu, Hongliang Li
Summary: This article reports on the efforts to select a landing site for the Chinese Mars rover Zhurong within a pre-identified landing region. The researchers used high-resolution images and surface features to optimize the determination of a landing ellipse with minimum hazards. The study also characterized the landing site and revealed that the landing region may have experienced multiple episodes of resurfacing.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-PLANETS
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Zeyu Chen, Bo Wu, Yiran Wang, Shuo Liu, Zhaojin Li, Chenyu Yang, Jie Dong, Wei Rao
Summary: This study investigated the rock abundance and erosion rate at the landing site of the Chinese Mars rover, Zhurong, in southern Utopia Planitia. A convolutional neural network based method was developed for rock detection, and approximately 10,000 rocks were extracted. The study found that the rock abundance at the landing site was approximately 5%.
EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Bo Wu, Yiran Wang, Stephanie C. Werner, Nils C. Prieur, Zhiyong Xiao
Summary: This study analyzed the morphological characteristics of craters on the Moon and found distinguishable differences between the lunar highlands and maria. It also identified a global power-law relationship between crater depth-to-diameter ratios and crater densities. The study provides references for the thicknesses of the mare basalts and highland upper megaregolith.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Yuqi Qian, Zhenbing She, Qi He, Long Xiao, Zaicong Wang, James W. Head, Lingzhi Sun, Yiran Wang, Bo Wu, Xiang Wu, Biji Luo, Kenan Cao, Yiheng Li, Mingtan Dong, Wenlei Song, Fabin Pan, Joseph Michalski, Binlong Ye, Jiawei Zhao, Siyuan Zhao, Jun Huang, Jiannan Zhao, Jiang Wang, Keqing Zong, Zhaochu Hu
Summary: This study found that young lunar basalts have a lower abundance of olivine than previously suggested, based on the analysis of Chang'e-5 samples and Moon Mineralogy Mapper data. The research also reassessed the model ages of these basalts and discovered an increasing trend in TiO2 abundance with time. The presence of young basalts around 2.0 billion years ago indicates ongoing mare volcanism and the need for additional heat sources or mechanisms compared to older basalts. Therefore, further investigation and sampling of young mare samples from Chang'e-5 and other potential sites are necessary to understand the late lunar thermal and volcanic history.
Article
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Zhaojin Li, Bo Wu, Wai Chung Liu, Long Chen, Hongliang Li, Jie Dong, Wei Rao, Dong Wang, Qingyu Meng, Jihong Dong
Summary: This article presents a novel approach for photogrammetric processing of HiRIC images for precision topographic mapping on Mars. The approach achieves subpixel accuracy among multiple-CCD or multiple-orbit images and demonstrates good geometric accuracy and preservation of topographic details compared to reference data.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING
(2022)
Article
Geography, Physical
Long Chen, Bo Wu, Yao Zhao, Yuan Li
Summary: The study introduces a real-time system for acquisition and analysis of 3D human body kinematics based on photogrammetry, utilizing deep learning and GPU acceleration for real-time extraction and processing of kinematic data. Experimental results show that the system achieves high measurement accuracy and effective detection distance at a rate of 18 frames per second.
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING AND REMOTE SENSING
(2021)
